Come quickly

I don't why, but I discharge so quickly. I don't know how to hold it for long.

Harmin

Dear Harmin,

Perhaps because you, like so many of us, learned to communicate with your penis like you learned to eat candy: with stealth, haste and greed. In other words, that's how you learned to undertake so many activities that give you guilty pleasure - in the crushing secrecy of your shame tent.

Many of our budding sexual experiences involve a lot of sneaky behaviour. We develop quick, efficient tactics that serve us well when our mother is banging on the bathroom door but that prove problematic when it comes to sharing a more sensuous occasion with someone else.

In many ways, our experiences with sex are no different than those of our animal colleagues, who live in constant fear of getting ripped limb from limb while they're fucking, so they jackhammer away and then book it.

"Millennia ago," says the book The Illustrated Guide To Extended Massive Orgasm, "when humans lived in small tribes as hunter-gatherers and were threatened regularly by other tribes and wild animals, survival was the highest priority, and so people could not hold the pursuit of pleasure - including masturbation - as a high priority. We live in a different world now, one where we hope pleasure will take a higher priority."

Harmin, you can teach yourself to come less quickly by committing yourself to a thoughtful regime of undisturbed masturbation. As The Illustrated Guide says, "Most people masturbate to relieve tension, not necessarily to extend their pleasure over time." I would recommend buying this book and giving it a thorough read. Though you may find it a little New Agey at times, its gentle and loving approach is actually quite fitting when it comes to rediscovering sexual pleasure.

Dear Sasha,

I've been married for 13 years and have two children, ages eight and 10. My wife has been going through medical problems (arthritis), and I hate to sound selfish, but I don't get the sex I once enjoyed. When she's feeling better, it seems she has no desire to have sex. I don't really know if it's me or her lack of interest, because she won't say. I don't think either of us want a split in our marriage. I've mentioned seeing an escort or hooker and she seems fine with the idea, but the question is if I really do it, what will she feel? To say and do it are two different things. Whenever we are about to have sex, she always says, "Make it quick," or "Are you done?" Obviously she doesn't care for it at all, just does it to please me. Any suggestions?

Thank You

Dear Thank You,

I think it's fair (if not painfully honest) to say that you won't ever get the same sex you used to with and from your partner, regardless of her health status. I'm not kidding when I say I am deeply sorry that this beautiful love ideal we cobbled together at some point in our history of hooking up is not working out how we all wanted it to. I'm sorry that we were all just trying to find comfort, security and passion, and that those three emotions - while compatible at first - often become mutually exclusive. It is truly depressing. When I imagine your wife gritting her teeth through sex and you actually soliciting her for it despite knowing this, I kind of want to collapse in a heap. And then exhume Edward Burne-Jones and have him paint me collapsed in a heap.

Isn't it time we kindly admitted to ourselves that we are not failures because we wanted to pursue something that seemed really sweet and powerful but turned out to be far more complicated? That we simply wanted to face the tribulations of this planet with a friend and a lover?

I think this might be the hardest thing to do, to forgive ourselves for our shortcomings in this regard. We are not failures if we can't live up to impossible ideals. We are not failures for believing in things that we made up to make life easier and more meaningful. This heady combination of courtly love, religious ideology and sexual oppression that we call monogamy in Western culture befuddles all of us at some point or another, Thank You.

It may be time to sit down with your wife and talk honestly about desire without attaching it to traditional marital expectations (and falling into patterns of fear, shame and anger) and figure out what can be done to make both of you happy. It's true, if you go outside of your marriage to have sex, it will shift things, and if you want to be honest about this, you will need to be able to discuss it with open minds and hearts. It's fucking scary when things don't turn out the way you intended them to, but it doesn't mean that you can't move away from your original plan and try something new that also involves at least an attempt at respect and satisfaction. Look to the folks who have been doing this for years for guidance: Tristan Taormino, Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy.